Israeli war cabinet

The Israeli war cabinet was formed on 11 October 2023, five days after the beginning of the Gaza war. The opposition party National Unity joined the thirty-seventh government led by Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. Negotiations began upon the outbreak of the war.

On 13 June 2024, former Chiefs of the General Staff Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot exited the war cabinet, leaving Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, Ron Dermer and Aryeh Deri as its only members. The cabinet was subsequently dissolved on 17 June.

An armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups has been taking place since 7 October 2023. Part of the broader Gaza–Israel conflict and following an uptick of violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the war began with a militant incursion into Israel from the Gaza Strip, while the responding Israeli counteroffensive was named "Operation Swords of Iron" by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Hostilities were initiated early in the morning with a rocket barrage of at least 3,000 missiles against Israel and vehicle-transported incursions into its territory. Palestinian militants broke through the Gaza–Israel barrier and forced their way through Gaza border crossings, attacking nearby Israeli communities and military installations. At least 1,200 Israelis were killed, including a massacre at a music festival where at least 260 civilians were killed. Israeli soldiers and civilians, including children and elderly, were taken hostage to the Gaza Strip. Hamas abducted at least 199 people, taking hostage both Israelis and persons of several other nationalities.

The war represents a tipping point in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the Gaza–Israel conflict, which followed a violent year that saw increased expansion of Israeli settlements and clashes in Jenin, Al-Aqsa mosque, and Gaza, which killed almost 250 Palestinians and 36 Israelis; Hamas cited these events as justification for the attack and called on Palestinians to join the fight to "expel the occupiers and demolish the walls". In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared states of emergency and war, vowing a "mighty vengeance for this dark day".

Among opposition parties, Yesh Atid leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid, National Unity chairman Benny Gantz, Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman and Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli issued a joint statement expressing full backing for the IDF and unity with the government, saying: "In times like these, there is no opposition and coalition in Israel."

Netanyahu proposed that Yesh Atid and National Unity enter an emergency unity government with his Likud-led coalition, after Lapid urged Netanyahu put "aside our differences and form an emergency, narrow, professional government". Lapid said that Israel could not effectively manage the war with "the extreme and dysfunctional composition of the current cabinet" and called upon Netanyahu to eject the far-right Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit parties as a condition for Yesh Atid to join an emergency unity government.

The National Unity party met with Likud on 9 October to discuss a possible unity government, with National Unity likely to join such an arrangement. Likud said the emergency unity government would be similar to the one formed before the Six-Day War in 1967. Levi Eshkol and then-opposition leader Menachem Begin joined hands for the duration of the War in the thirteenth government of Israel.